ing new; almost everywhere
men had long been accustomed to be treated like slaves,
and it signified little in the long run whether a Carthaginian overseer,
a Syrian satrap, or a Roman proconsul acted as the local tyrant.
Their material well-being, almost the only thing for which
the provincials still cared, was far less disturbed by those occurrences,
which although numerous in proportion to the many tyrants yet affected
merely isolated individuals, than by the financial exactions pressing
heavily on all, which had never previously been prosecuted
with such energy.

The Romans now gave in this domain fearful proof of their old master
of money-matters. We have already endeavoured to describe
the Roman system of provincial oppression in its modest
and rational foundations as well as in its growth and corruption
as a matter of course, the latter went on increasing. The ordinary taxes
became far more oppressive from the inequality of their distribution
and from the preposterous system of levying them than from their
high amount. As to the burden of quartering troops, Roman statesmen
themselves expressed the opinion that a town suffered nearly
to the same extent when a Roman army took up winter quarters
in it as when an enemy took it by storm. While the taxation
in its original character had been an indemnification for the burden
of military defence undertaken by Rome, and the community
paying tribute had thus a right to remain exempt from ordinary service,
garrison-service was now--as is attested e. g. in the case
of Sardinia--for the most part imposed on the provincials,
and even in the ordinary armies, besides other duties, the whole
heavy burden of the cavalry-service was devolved on them.
The extraordinary contributions demanded--such as, the deliveries
of grain for little or no compensation to benefit the proletariate
of the capital; the frequent and costly naval armaments and coast-
defences in order to check piracy; the task of supplying works of art,
wild beasts, or other demands of the insane Roman luxury in the theatre
and the chase; the military requisitions in case of war--
were just as frequent as they were oppressive and incalculable.
A single instance may show how far things were carried.
During the three years' administration of Sicily by Gaius Verres
the number of farmers in Leontini fell from 84 to 32, in Motuca
from 187 to 86, in Herbita from 252 to 120, in Agyrium from 250 to 80;
so that in four